Category: Entrepreneurship

For our video of the week watch Elon Musk: How to Build the Future. Enjoy!

From YouTube: Access podcast and transcript versions of this interview here: https://www.ycombinator.com/future/elon/

Continuing with yesterday’s post The Four Startup Stages, there’s another, much simper, way to describe the startup stages in eight short words:

• Pilot it
• Nail it
• Scale it
• Milk it

Pretty simple, right? “Pilot it” is the idea stage with a prototype. “Nail it” is the search for product/market fit. “Scale it” is the repeatable customer acquisition process and growth. Finally, “milk it” is maximizing value.

Need to describe the startup stages? Use these eight words.

What else? What are some more ways to describe the startup stages in a simple way?

Whenever someone tells me that want to join a startup, I always ask about their preferred stage. Typically, they don’t have a context for the stage name jargon so I go through the common ones:

• Idea Stage – An idea is in place. Maybe there’s a team, maybe it’s just a founder. There isn’t much here yet other than an idea and a dream.
• Seed Stage – The prototype works. Usually a few customers or beta users that are trying things out. Likely some friends and family funding or lots of sweat equity.
• Early Stage – Product/market fit is solid and there are paying customers. Revenue is in the mid six-figures to low single digit millions. Customer acquisition is working and repeatability is the focus.
• Growth Stage – Things are humming along nicely with the overall business cranking. Revenue is at least $5M and often much higher. Scaling is the main focus and there’s a path to the next major milestone.

With each stage comes the typical pros and cons as well as a risk/reward trade off for potential new employees. When seeking a job at a startup, it’s important to understand the standard stages and think through what’s most appropriate.

What else? What are some more thoughts on the four startup stages?

Once a startup finds product/market fit and a repeatable customer acquisition process, it’s off to the races to build a large, meaningful company (see The Four Stages of a B2B Startup). Only, when it’s really, truly working, there’s virtually no end to the capital available (assuming good unit economics and a fair valuation). More money is readily available, but every additional dollar of equity results in more dilution. Enter the dilution vs. growth rate trade off.

Here are a few questions to consider:

• What are some low/no dilution options to grow faster? Venture debt? Raise a smaller round to get to the next milestone?
• What’s the competitive landscape like? How hard are the competitors pushing (this is one of the reasons scaling SaaS is so expensive)?
• How’s the growth rate now? What’s the estimated growth rate necessary to win the market? What’ll it take to close that gap?
• How promising are the expansion ideas? Geographic expansion? Industry expansion?
• Who’s gone through this before that can be a good sounding board?

Once a startup is working, it’s an amazing thing. Only, the dilution vs. growth rate trade off is real and should be constantly evaluated.

What else? What are some more thoughts on the dilution vs. growth rate trade off?

Earlier today I was talking about markets and timing with an entrepreneur. Some startups with amazing teams fail while other startups with “normal” teams achieve incredible results. What gives? Markets and timing play a critical role.

Here are a few thoughts on the importance of markets and timing:

• Being too early to a market is a failure (how many times have you heard someone say “I had that same idea 10 years ago…”)
• Being too late to a market is a failure (“we got crushed by the competition” said no entrepreneur ever, but happens all the time)
• The best timing is slightly early so that when the market takes off, the startup already has customers, employees, and a foundation to build on
• Two popular ways to think about markets: resegmenting a large, existing market with something better, faster, and cheaper or going after a small, fast-growing new market with a solution
• Occasionally the size of a market can be expanded with a new solution (like Uber did for the taxi market) but often the market size is relatively static, so choose well

Timing a market with the right product is difficult, very difficult. Entrepreneurs would do well spending more time thinking about markets and timing as they play an outsized role in success.

What else? What are some more thoughts on the importance of markets and timing?

Continuing with this week’s theme of co-founders (see here, here, and here), there’s another topic to address: solo founders. While a pair of co-founders is the more common success story, major companies like Amazon.com were founded by a solo entrepreneur. I’ve founded a number of startups both with co-founders and as a solo founder and have a few thoughts on it.

Here are some pros and cons of being a solo founder:

Pros

• Simple – There’s no recruiting another founder to join the team. It’s just you starting out with no dependencies.
• Cheap – Work on your startup during the day and drive Uber at night to pay the bills. It’s only your expenses.
• Style – Whatever your style is, you get to keep doing it. You make the rules, the hours, the whatever — it’s just you.
• Equity – The startup is 100% yours. You get to personally debate the whole “all of a grape vs a slice of a watermelon” regarding your strategy to raise money or bootstrap and the potential outcomes.

Cons

• Lonely – Having a co-founder means having a companion that’s there with you 24/7 focused on making the startup successful. Going solo can get lonely.
• Speed – Small, high quality teams move much faster than an individual. There’s a ton to do and never enough time.
• Debates – Decisions are often better when two committed people work to come up with the best solution. As an individual, there’s often a single perspective (advisors and mentors can help here).

Some of these cons can be solved by raising money and hiring people. Only, it’s a chicken and egg problem in that you need traction to raise money. And, to get traction you need people. Also, most investors want to see at least two founders as it fits their pattern recognition.

Being any type of founder isn’t easy, and being a solo founder is especially hard. Consider the pros and cons and make the best decision for you.

What else? What are some more pros and cons of being a solo founder?

Continuing with the recent co-founder posts on equity and the high cost of a third co-cofounder, there’s another important topic: characteristics to look for in a co-founder. I’ve seen many co-founder relationships come apart after starting a company due to lack of compatibility and alignment. Basically, there wasn’t enough understanding and relationship building before getting married.

Here are a few characteristics to look for in a co-founder:

• Owner Mentality – Is the co-founder willing to forgo salary to keep the lights on? Will they put their house up as guarantee on a business loan?
• Commitment – Do they understand just how hard it is to be successful? Are they willing to grind it out for years to see some level of modest success?
• Skills – Do they have exceptional skills that are complementary? Are these skills hard to come by or highly valued? How relevant and proven are the skills?
• Values – Do they share the same core values? How about personal, family, and life values?
• Personality Fit – How well do you get along? How confident are you in spending thousands of hours working together?

A co-founder is a big decision. Entrepreneurs would do well to outline the characteristics of the ideal co-founder and then compare those against the person(s) they have in mind.

What else? What are some more thoughts on the characteristics of of a co-founder?

Continuing with yesterday’s post on Co-Founder Equity Ideas, there’s another point that needs to be made: adding a third co-founder can be one of the most “expensive” things a founder does, assuming equally split equity. Think about the standard scenario where there are two co-founders, each with 50% of the company. Now, introduce a third, equal co-founder where each has 33% of the company. The original two founders would have 33% less — that’s a huge amount of dilution.

Here are a few thoughts on a third co-founder:

• Two co-founders is almost always better than three, especially when there isn’t a clear division of responsibilities, as it’s easier to make decisions and get everyone on the same page
• Adding a third co-founder with equal equity results in substantial dilution for the first two co-founders
• Consider adding the third co-founder down the road once the startup has made more progress and the co-founder can be brought on at a different equity level (they could be an advisor in the interim)
• If the startup raises money, there’s often the ability to pay more salary and less co-founder-level equity, such that the dilution from the investment is better overall for the original founders

Think about the great tech success stories like Apple, Amazon, and Google — there’s rarely more than two co-founders. Know that having a third co-founder is rare and brings with it a high cost.

What else? What are some more thoughts on the high cost of a third co-founder?